The nursing shortage crisis
Abstract
There is a nursing shortage in hospitals across Canada, but there is no shortage of nurses. This is the dilemma facing the nursing profession and the Canadian health care system in general.
Last year in Metro Toronto, for example, an area that enjoys one of the largest pools of nursing manpower in North America, several hospitals were obliged to transfer twenty-four women with high- risk pregnancies to specialized hospital units in other parts of Ontario. Just before Christmas, two Ottawa hospitals temporarily closed their emergency departments to all but life-threatening cases. At New Year's, a critically ill new-born had to be flown from Toronto to Buffalo, New York for treatment. Such scenes are becoming commonplace, not only in Ontario, but in other provinces as well. A variety of reasons are given for this crisis:
